Maintaining Lists For Your Clients

When removing your mailing lists initially from the completed file, note whether they were taken from the order or no order sections. If taken from the order section, make out a duplicate card on a colored card and temporarily place this in the No order section. Should no order be received from this mailing, both cards would normally end up in the no order section. However, the existence of the colored duplicate card found here will remind you to place both cards in the order section since one order or more has already been received from this particular customer.

As your affiliate marketing network business grows you will gradually accumulate a large number of cards in both the order and no order sections of your completed file. These cards represent a valuable commodity. All show names of persons who have replied to a classified ad placed by a mail order company. Those who actually ordered from you are those who have actually bought from a mail order company. As such, they become the nucleus of mailing lists which can serve as an additional source of income for you.

Within the inquirers file, place one set of cards from the no order section of your completed file. File these by zip code. Do the same in the purchasers file with duplicate cards from the order section of your completed file.

Mailing lists are completed and marketed in multiples of one thousand affiliate marketing network names. Until you have at least 1000 names in one or another of your mailing list files, you do not have a saleable list.

Names can be sold outright or leased for one-time use. When selling a list, which is not a good idea, bundle your cards in multiples of 10000. They can be sold to any mailing list broker. The price you receive will depend somewhat on market conditions, the particular product or service you sell, and on whether your list contains purchasers or inquirers who did not buy.

Leasing of names for a mailing list usually will run from $15 to $50. Thus, you can lease your mailing list many times over, turning these names into additional profits for you.

To get customers for your lists, you will either have to advertise its availability or work through an affiliate marketing network list broker. This additional advertising is not recommended, primarily because of its cost, so long as list leasing is not your main business. In working through a broker you will receive only a percentage of his charge for leasing your list, but he is likely to find many more customers for it than you could. After all, his only business is mailing lists and he can be considered an expert in the subject. When your list is large enough, and recent enough to be considered fairly clean, contact several list brokers and discuss arrangements with them.

When you lease your list to another company you provide him with only a one-time use, charging the current rate per 1000 names for the type and quality of your list. You do not allow the list customer to see your names as this would, in effect, be selling them to him rather cheaply. Instead, he will contract with you for you to mail his advertising to the names on your list.